Have you ever had a gum graft? Well if you haven’t you are lucky, very lucky. A gum graft is when the doctor, dentist person goes into your mouth and scrapes gum off the top of your mouth then sews it in places where you lack it. I had a gum graft in the summer in 2008 when I was 12. I got one because I needed braces, and to get braces I needed a gum graft. So I went in on a Tuesday and spent four hours sitting in a chair while they did this to me. When I came in they started off by putting a mold in my mouth for the retainer I had to wear afterwards. When they put the mold in my mouth, I barfed all over the floor and all over me. The nurse freaked out and rushed around to clean it all up before the real surgery. When the doc came in he started to talk to me about what he was going to do in detail and what I could eat afterward. Then he put the chair down, the surgery was beginning.
He started to put the numbing stuff in my mouth. The numbing paste was strawberry and it wasn’t too bad. Then it started. It burned, really bad, so bad that it sort of stung. They told me to put my head back and they started to drill holes in my gum. It didn’t really hurt because of the numbing paste, but I could still feel it. It felt weird to know they were cutting into you but it didn’t hurt. They drilled something like twelve holes in the lower part of my mouth. I could see the blood spewing out from the newly drilled holes. Then he started to shove cotton rolls in my mouth, and then it felt like they were poking the roof of my mouth with a stick. What they were really doing was scraping gum from the top of my mouth. It hurt like the dickens! I could see the blood again gushing out of where they were scraping. There was more blood than before and even the strawberry goop couldn’t even prevent the pain. On top of the blood and the pain they shoved more cotton rolls in my mouth. Finally there was a break, a break before more pain.
After a five second break they started again. The doc. picked up two peices of what looked like plastic, but it wasn’t plastic it was the gum. The gum was white not redish pink like normal gum. He picked up one of the two pieces and the nurse got a needle and thread and gave it to the doctor. He placed my gum on my gum. Then he started to sew it in. It was weird because I could feel the thread going in and out and I could feel him tie the not. The sewing didn’t hurt as much as the scraping but it still sort of hurt. After the stitches they took little tiny bandages. They looked and smelled like the cast material. If you have ever broken a limb or had to have a cast you probably know what I’m talking about. Well that gross smell was in my mouth and I couldn’t get rid of it. Then it was over. Yippy it’s over! Only sort of over, they had to give me a retainer so that my band- aids wouldn’t fall out. The only thing is that they had to glue, the gross glue that you have when you get braces, and that tastes bad. Now it was over.
After the gum graft I got in the car and sat down then it started to hurt. It hurt really badly because all the numbing stuff warn off. That night it hurt so bad that I couldn’t eat dinner. The next day was the worst, it hurt all day and I still could barely eat anything. For the next two weeks I could only eat yogurt and non-solid foods. The whole thing was terrible and thank goodness it’s over although I can still feel and see it.